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The annual Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2014–2015 have been published. The top three universities have held their position from last year: Caltech came in first, followed by Harvard and Oxford.

Unsurprisingly, the top spots are dominated by US and UK universities. The only exceptions in the top 20 are ETH Zürich, Switzerland, (13th place) and the University of Toronto, Canada (rank 20).

Top 20 Universities

Rank

Institution

Country

Score

1

California Institute of Technology (Caltech)

USA

94.3

2

Harvard University

USA

93.3

3

University of Oxford

UK

93.2

4

Stanford University

USA

92.9

5

University of Cambridge

UK

92.0

6

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

USA

91.9

7

Princeton University

USA

90.9

8

University of California, Berkeley

USA

89.5

9

Imperial College London

UK

87.5

9

Yale University

USA

87.5

11

University of Chicago

USA

87.1

12

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)

USA

85.5

13

ETH Zürich

Switzerland

84.6

14

Columbia University

USA

84.4

15

Johns Hopkins University

USA

83.0

16

University of Pennsylvania

USA

81.0

17

University of Michigan

USA

80.9

18

Duke University

USA

79.9

19

Cornell University

USA

79.4

20

University of Toronto

Canada

79.3

Top 20 Universities in the Physical Sciences

Rank

Institution

Country

Score

1

Princeton University

USA

93.1

2

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

USA

92.6

3

Harvard University

USA

92.3

4

California Institute of Technology (Caltech)

USA

92.0

4

Stanford University

USA

92.0

6

University of Cambridge

UK

90.4

7

University of Oxford

UK

88.6

8

University of Chicago

USA

87.0

9

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)

USA

86.8

10

University of California, Berkeley

USA

86.4

11

ETH Zürich

Switzerland

85.2

12

Imperial College London

UK

85.1

13

Yale University

USA

84.7

14

Columbia University

USA

82.8

15

Cornell University

USA

81.1

16

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

Germany

76.8

17

University of Washington

USA

76.2

18

The University of Tokyo

Japan

75.6

19

University of Toronto

Canada

75.3

20

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

Switzerland

73.3

Physical Sciences subjects used to create this ranking:

Astronomy & Astrophysics

Chemistry

Crystallography

Earth Sciences

Mathematics & Statistics

Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences

Nanotechnology

Physics

Polymer Science

Physical Sciences - Other topics

Top 10 Countries

Country

Number of
institutions
in the top 200

USA

74

UK

29

Germany

12

Netherlands

11

Australia

8

Canada

8

France

7

Switzerland

7

Japan

5

Sweden

5

Methodology

The Times Higher Education ranking uses 13 performance indicators, grouped into five areas:

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